


a girl you knew (in a day or two)

by Damkianna



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: 5 Things, Developing Relationship, Episode Related, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Kissing, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22674088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: Four things that could have happened while Two and Nyx were sparring, plus one thing that definitely should have.
Relationships: Nyx Harper/Two | Portia Lin
Comments: 9
Kudos: 26
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	a girl you knew (in a day or two)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/gifts).



> I couldn't decide between your suggestions, Isis, so please enjoy this stack of several of them—and happy Chocolate Box!
> 
> Each of these things follows/is a response to elements of certain episodes (2.01/2.02, 2.06, 2.09, and 2.12, in that order), except for the last, which is definitely what happened IN MY HEART after every single episode, full stop. Title from the poem "[I think I should have loved you presently](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46556/i-think-i-should-have-loved-you-presently)", by Edna St Vincent Millay.

**one: fighting to a draw.**

The door slid open.

Two looked up.

She usually had the training room to herself, during this part of ship's day. Or at least she had before they'd picked up three new crewmembers who hadn't had time to get used to "usually" on the _Raza_.

She'd have been surprised if it were Devon. Somehow he didn't seem like the type. Arax—maybe. And she wouldn't have minded if it had been him. He'd helped them escape from Hyperion. They owed him. But there was something in the back of her head that said he was a man who could stand to be punched in the face. To know that Two would, and could, and to learn firsthand exactly how hard she was able to do it.

But the figure standing in the open doorway wasn't him, either.

It was Nyx.

"Looking for a rematch?" Two murmured.

Nyx hadn't been: that much was obvious in the way she'd stopped short, the part where she was already visibly poised to walk away again.

But she'd hesitated, when Two spoke. And now she looked at Two, and tilted her head, and the barest hint of a smile had begun to curve her mouth.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," she said, after a moment. "But as long as you're offering ..."

She let the words trail off. She wasn't going to push, Two thought. Not now. The prison had been familiar territory, for Nyx. She'd known what she was doing there, and she'd been able to afford to take chances, when she wanted to. But now they were on the _Raza_. Two's ship, Two's crew, Two's rules; Two was the one who had a handle on how things worked here, who held the high ground. And Nyx knew it.

"Sure," Two said. "Why not," and looked away—and Nyx took the bait, stepping forward into the room, and Two braced herself against the floor and swept a leg out to kick that front foot out from under her.

She didn't know what to call the feeling when she missed. It should have been frustrating. She hardly ever missed. Even back in the early days, without her memory, without any understanding of who she was or what was happening to her, Two had at least been able to trust her body. Discovering that she could fight, that she was fast and strong and sure—that had been one of the few things she had known for certain about herself, and she'd learned to depend on it.

But Nyx could cut that out from under her, somehow. Two could get the better of her, sure. For a blow or three at a time. But then Nyx would end up just out of reach of the next strike Two had planned, or find an opening she shouldn't have been able to see coming, and suddenly Two would be scrambling to keep up again.

Two didn't do a lot of scrambling. She was pretty sure Portia Lin hadn't, either. And it should have been frustrating; hell, it was.

But there was something Two liked about it, too. She was different, she was synthetic. But maybe she wasn't so different she couldn't still get her ass kicked now and then. Maybe she wasn't alone.

Nyx had moved just fast enough to come up off the floor over Two's sweep, already lunging in to aim a knee at Two's face. She was going to go for the hair, Two thought. She'd done that last time, fighting in Three's cell, grabbing for Two's head to smash it down.

So Two ducked out from under, started to roll—Nyx's knee caught her in the shoulder, and she brought her arm up and grabbed for Nyx's thigh, her hip; lifted, so the last momentum of Nyx's own lunge would send Nyx over her, past her.

Nyx was more than good enough to know how to fall. Two didn't waste the time that making her do it had bought. She pushed herself up right away, and then Nyx was on her again.

They traded half a dozen quick close blows, before Nyx managed to get an elbow in and smash Two across the face with it; Two let the motion turn her, jammed her own elbow out and caught Nyx in the solar plexus, and listened to Nyx's breath choke itself off in her throat.

She was going to follow up by pressing the advantage, shoving Nyx backward into the wall. It made sense. But even as she closed again, she felt Nyx's leg hooking her at the knees, and they tumbled to the floor instead.

Two grappled for a halfway decent position, pushed her forearm against the base of Nyx's throat and leaned in over it, pressing down—but Nyx shoved back against her weight and sidled out from under it, rolled them and then broke free and came to her feet again.

Damn. She really was quick.

"I know you're hiding something," Two said.

It was true. Two could fight like this because she was synthetic. She was different. And if she wasn't alone, that meant Nyx was different, too.

Nyx's face was calm, perfectly, flawlessly. A lake without ripples.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said.

"Right," Two murmured. "Okay."

Nyx smiled at her, and didn't look away. "Best two out of three?" she said.

"Who won that one?"

Nyx shrugged a shoulder, easy. "Does it matter?"

Two thought about it. "No," she decided, and Nyx smiled even wider, warm and brilliant, and then came at her again.

**two: making things that aren't easy a little easier.**

After Milo, things changed.

It hurt Nyx, deep down, to leave him with the Seers. Two could tell that much easily enough.

It was harder to tell what she ought to be doing about it.

Didn't help that she was off-balance herself. She could admit that, even if she didn't want to. She'd known there was something; but she hadn't expected _that_. And now there were all these huge new things she had learned about Nyx, things Nyx probably hadn't wanted her to learn—but she knew them anyway.

And she didn't think she could know them but treat Nyx as though she didn't; as though Nyx were still just a stranger keeping secrets. But she hadn't figured out how to treat this new Nyx, either: this Nyx who had a brother and a past, who was running from something a lot bigger than prison time.

But Nyx was quiet, unhappy, uncertain. Like she didn't know what she was doing, now that the purpose she'd been using to drive herself—finding Milo, getting him out—was gone. Like she wasn't sure what she was here for, without it.

Two hated it. She couldn't leave Nyx like that.

There was no point talking about it. It had happened, it was over; there was nothing either of them could do about it.

So Two decided to try something else.

She didn't ask. She didn't give an order. She waited, that was all. Kept an eye on the ship's internal sensors, asked the android to monitor them when she couldn't. And when the android commed her to say Nyx had entered the training room alone, Two was there inside ten minutes.

She didn't say anything. By the time Nyx looked up, Two had already swung.

It made sense, now that she knew. They were an even better match these days than they used to be, the change slow but unmistakable—because Nyx knew Two better, because she had more data. Her intuition, her predictions, had gotten more and more accurate. Two still landed a hit now and then, and she was still fast enough, strong enough, that Nyx never quite won outright. But knowing about the Seers, about what Nyx could do, had knocked it all into place: that they could move together as smoothly as they did, blow and block, strike and counterstrike, as if they'd planned it. Because for ten seconds at a time, they almost had.

Nyx was slow, today. Two almost clipped her. She ducked away just in time, and came back up glaring, irritated. "What are you—"

Two didn't let her finish. She rained down a handful of strikes, deliberately sacrificing power for sheer speed. One struck; Nyx blocked the next, but clumsily; and then the next, the next, smoother, faster. Angry—furious. She looked like she wanted to set Two on fire.

But she wasn't being quiet anymore. And she wasn't uncertain, either.

The opposite, if anything. She'd come up on the balls of her bare feet, just a little, and now that she was paying attention, now that that Seer's mind of hers was working, she was quick, sure, steady. Two managed to hook her into half a hold, but she broke it almost as fast, spun away, darted back in and feinted, and then caught Two's shoulder and whirled them both around and slammed Two's head into the wall.

Not bad at all, Two thought.

She drove an elbow back, and Nyx made a soft pained noise against the nape of her neck and let go. Her ears were ringing a little, for a second; but the nanites were going to take care of the rest.

And when she turned around, Nyx was standing there panting a little, eyes bright. She looked irritated. She looked intent. She looked alive.

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing," she said.

"Yeah?" Two said. "Is it working?"

Nyx's mouth twisted; but she didn't say no. "I'll let you know," she murmured instead.

And that felt a lot like a win—even if Nyx lunged in and knocked her on her ass a second later.

**three: learning something new.**

It only took about five minutes to tell that the upgraded nanites were making a difference.

More of one than just the part where Two wasn't collapsed dead on the floor.

"You really are feeling better," Nyx said, panting.

"Yeah," Two agreed, and let her out of the choke.

Not that she wouldn't have broken it herself, given a couple more seconds. But Two didn't usually manage to catch her by surprise long enough to do even that much. She was faster, stronger; she could tell. And Nyx was probably going to need another sparring session or two to get the data she needed to adjust for it.

Well. Until she did, Two was at least going to enjoy the advantage while she had it.

She grinned at Nyx, showing teeth, and Nyx had caught her breath enough to laugh, shaking her hair back with a toss of her head.

"So the nanites are working," Nyx said, like that high CPA of hers extended to calculating what Two was thinking.

"Seems that way," Two murmured, and looked down at her hands, turning them over, flexing them.

Not even a hint of trembling. No spasms.

"Good," Nyx said.

Two looked up.

"We were worried about you," Nyx added, more softly, and bit her lip. "All of us."

Two met her eyes, and then swallowed and looked away, and shook her head. "It's funny," she said, equally quiet. "Dwarf Star is such a huge part of my life—they have so much control over me. If we hadn't been able to get those nanites from them, I'd be dead now. But I can't remember it. I can't remember any of it."

"I imagine that's for the best," Nyx offered after a moment, "considering what they did to you."

Two glanced up, and huffed a breath out her nose that wasn't quite a laugh. "Yeah. You're probably right." She bit the inside of her cheek. "It's just—there are so many things I think of as me. But I don't know whether they are. Maybe Dwarf Star put them there. Maybe they're just part of the design—"

"It doesn't matter who gave you what you have," Nyx said. "It matters what you're choosing to do with it."

Two wanted to agree with her. She wanted to think that was true. But that didn't mean it was.

"Even this," she heard herself say instead. "The fighting. I don't—I can't remember learning how to do it. If I had to practice it, or what any of it is called. I just know." She stopped.

Nyx was watching her, quiet.

"Well," she said after a moment, "I was filled up with every kind of data Electus had to offer, even before I could understand any of it." She smiled just a little, tentative, one corner of her mouth. "I can't really recommend experiencing it the other way around, either."

Two looked at her, and for a brief absurd moment she almost wanted to laugh. Here they were, escaped prototypes, fleeing the boxes they were supposed to have stayed locked inside. They'd each had a purpose they were meant for—and they'd each thrown it away, which was great right up until the part where you had to figure out for yourself what the fuck to do next—

Nyx cleared her throat, and raised her eyebrows, and then moved. Not an attack, not really: a kick, using her whole leg, rotating into it with her body, but it wasn't aimed at Two.

"Roundhouse," she said.

Roundhouse, Two repeated to herself. Okay. She'd used that one before, plenty of times. She just hadn't know what its name was; if anybody had ever told her, it had gone away with her memory.

"Okay," she said aloud—and then took a quick stride forward and aimed one at Nyx's waist.

Nyx dodged out of reach with a sharp laugh, and then darted in—Two struck, and was blocked, and struck again, and then Nyx's arm came up from beneath, just inside Two's half-extended forearm.

Her fist stopped just short of Two's chin, and then she nudged it gently with her knuckles.

"Uppercut."

"Uppercut," Two agreed, and she was—

She was glad she didn't know this, she thought. She was glad she couldn't remember Dwarf Star teaching it to her, if they had. Because she'd have chosen a thousand times over to be able to learn it from Nyx instead.

**four: sharing a secret.**

Four—

Ryo.

Ryo let them go, when he was done. He had what he'd wanted. Or at least most of it. Two thought about war, about the blink drive, about the sheer satisfaction Ryo had gotten out of their successful ambush of General Drago, and couldn't convince herself that was really the end of it.

But he let them go; and it was a relief to blink away and leave Zairon far behind them.

Nyx shut herself up in her room and didn't come out, for a while. Wouldn't speak to anyone, either.

Two went to the training room anyway. Not because she thought Nyx would show, even though they'd been meeting here to spar semi-regularly for months now. Just because—

Just because in being there, a place she and Nyx had been before and would be again, Two was able to let herself think everything might be okay after all.

But then, right around the same time as usual, Nyx came in.

"Nyx," Two said quietly.

Nyx didn't answer. She strode in without pausing, jaw set, eyes hard, and threw a punch.

Plenty of force behind it, but it was sloppy, telegraphed. Two deflected it easily.

"Nyx," she said again, softer.

Nyx kicked her. Caught her just at the point of the hip, because Two was more worried about her face, more worried about _her_ , than she was about getting kicked. Two bore it, steadied herself, and didn't move away.

"Nyx," she murmured.

"Shut _up_ ," Nyx bit out, and struck her again. This time Two moved with it, let the impact blunt itself, and used that motion to grasp Nyx by the elbow.

"I'm here," she said, and it sounded stupid, hardly anything at all compared to what she _wanted_ to say, but Nyx drew a long shuddering breath and went still.

"I used to dream about it," Nyx said. "I used to wish for it. That they would all die. That the ship would explode. That somehow someone would miscalculate, one tiny little error, and we'd end up in the middle of a sun." She stopped, and swallowed, and squeezed her eyes shut. "Now I can't even decide which is worse—I know I ought to wish I'd never escaped at all, because that way Milo might still be alive; except they were looking for me. They were looking for _me_ , and that's what brought them down, and that shouldn't be so damn satisfying—" She laughed, harsh, barely a laugh at all. "They couldn't see it coming. Not without Milo. Because he knew Four better than any of them. He knew Four better than I did—"

"Nyx," Two said, and curved a hand around the nape of Nyx's neck, and pressed their foreheads together.

And Nyx stood there, silent, and shook, and didn't cry; and Two stood there with her and held on until she was done.

**and one: making out against a wall.**

They'd already been fighting for fifteen or twenty minutes. All warmed up, breathing hard; aching a little, here and there, skin hot, where a handful of blows had hit their marks.

Two was pretty sure her nanites, her advanced artificial physiology, meant her heart shouldn't have been pounding.

But it was.

They crossed the room in a flurry of close-quarter work, shortened swings and tight blocks, as if the training room were a third the size—as if neither one of them wanted to let any real space open up between them.

Nyx laughed, low, delighted, at a particularly showy spin Two threw in on a whim, and Two felt her mouth slant in reply and couldn't help but close with her: shove her with a forearm braced just below the graceful line of her collarbones, and then follow her the one stride, half of another, until they came up against the wall and Two could pin her there properly.

Nyx let her. Nyx let her, and tipped her head back, and the line of her throat was beautiful like that, and her eyes were steady and so, so dark, and Two couldn't look away.

"What," Two said, "not planning to wriggle out of it this time?"

"Mm, depends," Nyx murmured. "What are you planning to do with me if I don't?"

Two drew a sharp breath, and answered: held her there, and kissed her.

Even as she did it, even as she pressed in close, she saw Nyx's eyes already falling shut, Nyx's mouth curving sweetly. Because Nyx had seen it coming, Two thought. She probably couldn't have helped it—Two had given her every single piece of data she needed, and then some.

Two couldn't help but wonder whether she'd seen it before, and how many times it might have happened. How many times Two had come close enough, teetering on the edge of taking the chance, and made the possibility suddenly visible to Nyx, playing out in front of her like a dream and then fading away.

But not this time, Two thought, and kissed Nyx harder, more deeply. Slid her tongue along Nyx's lower lip, and then inside it; felt the barest edge of teeth, and made an urgent little sound low in her throat.

Wasn't any point in swallowing it down, was there? Not when—not when Nyx could hear the echo of the probability anyway.

Two had never liked the thought of being predictable. But this? This, she hoped Nyx had seen coming months ago, years ago. This, she hoped, was where they always ended up, the end of every path it was possible to take. A fixed point: a certainty.


End file.
